Reconstruction: The Third Element
by WargishBoromirFan
Summary: Chapter 100 spoilers out the proverbial whazoo, but Jossed/AU by 101. When Scar assists Roy and Riza, he finds it may be the end of the Ishvalan as we know him... Chapter 2 extended 1/14/10
1. Understanding

**A/N- **Because after Tim Marcoh in "The Ant's Bite," I'm convinced that _somebody's _going to pull off a Crowning Moment of Awesome next chapter. There're at least three very kickass alchemists outside the homunculi's control, Sig, half the Mustang gang, and need we mention da Bears... (Not entirely convinced Wrath couldn't surprise us yet, either... Then there's Pride...) In short, yes, Hiromu Arakawa _owns_. I merely flap my hands and write tinhat continuations to keep from obsessing about what happens next.

* * *

_There was no time._

Even if he wanted to try human transmutation – and he had to admit, they'd given him a damned good reason – he wouldn't know how to stop that crimson gush. Even if he'd known how, he didn't have the time and materials necessary to set up the right transmutation circle – he'd seen the remains of the Elrics'; even as splattered and smudged as it had been, Mustang knew that it had not been so simple a thing as its youthful creators' ages might have suggested, and that had been but a flawed experiment.

"Lieutenant!" he shouted, praying to a god he'd never truly believed in for some miracle, some way that this could be accomplished as quickly as a snap of his fingers or clap of his hands.

And then God's agent spoke two simple words, claiming a third life-debt from the Flame Alchemist he'd once been so ready to destroy. "Let me." Two sabers withdrew from the front of the Ishvalan's neck at the gold-toothed madman's guarded nod, and Scar stepped forward, placing his hand - his left hand - firmly against Riza's gushing wound. "Help me, brother," he murmured, so softly that at first Roy thought he was hearing an echo of Alphonse. Then the right arm of destruction flashed towards Hawkeye's captor - Roy could not yet call that soulless swordsman her murderer - there was the brilliant light and ozone-and-burning-flesh scent of an alchemic reaction, and then, Scar was gone, swallowed in the blink of an eye by a doorway that had not been there before and was not there when Mustang looked again.

Riza slumped to the floor, blood still staining her dark shirt and pale, pale skin. Not caring that he'd nearly dislocated his shoulder in the process, Mustang wrestled himself out of the would-be fuhrer's grasp and rushed to her, pulling her upright to rest against his chest as he knelt and held her in his arms, almost afraid to examine Scar's handiwork. At least the state alchemist killer would have been able to grant her a quick death…

But no, Hawkeye's chest still rose and fell, however erratically, against his own, and when Mustang dared wipe away some of the blood from her throat, the skin beneath was whole and as unmarred as he'd ever seen it.

"You realize your friend has merely postponed your transition," the strange man informed them with another gold-toothed gleam. "You will still be used as Father sees best, though I must contact him now to know what that is. Hold them here," he told the fuhrer puppets, turning to leave Roy and Riza - and most likely go wherever the Elric brothers had disappeared to.

"Hawkeye?" Mustang asked softly, once the man was out of hearing range. "Can you move?" He tightened his grip on her back and slid a couple of fingers beneath her collar.

In turn, she slowly opened woozy eyelids, reaching for his waistband and letting her hand slide until she grasped what she needed. "As long as I'm with you, sir."

Roy smiled, snapping the torn but still flint-lined glove as his other hand rested upon the original circle. He had destroyed enough of it that no one else would be able to glean the secrets of using it, but the cold, calculating bastard within him - one he often wished he could live without, even if expressing that wish had always made Hughes laugh and call Mustang a wide-eyed greenhorn - had flinched away from effacing the circle itself. This was using her, no better than the father who had tattooed it upon her at such an early age, and the only cold comfort Roy could take as she flipped his pistol up in her hands and fired behind them to hit any that had escaped his inferno, was that he'd never had to use it before. Maybe, just maybe, he'd never have to use it again to save their lives. Roy could only hope the next time he touched her back, it wouldn't have to be as colonel and lieutenant, though a part of him doubted very much that that would ever come to pass.

Even if today was the Promised Day.

*

"_Well, what do we have here?" _Scar stared at the white-on-white silhouette impassively. His hand was still gripping the arm of the fuhrer candidate, who dragged as mindlessly behind him as a rag doll. Having one's mind and soul removed tended to do that to a person, especially in absence of any puppet master. "_Very wise of you, to bring payment for the piper_," the white shadow smiled, and the black tendrils not unlike Pride's engulfed the body at Scar's side. "_For this, I will only take your arm_." The shadow was no longer perfectly white. A well-muscled, dark-skinned, untattooed right arm materialized where there had once only been featureless white, and if Scar looked too closely, he began to see the figure take on other features as well, features that might be the hapless fuhrer candidate, or his own, or…

"Who are you?" Scar asked.

"_Tell me your name, and I will tell you mine. Quite a challenge, isn't it, when the old name dies and you must rely on others to grant you a new one to go with the new personality. Especially once that person begins to change again. 'Scar' is a start, yes, but I do not think that that man lives any more than the one you were born as. Scar was a master of desconstruction, but never did he attempt to reconstitute anything. Never did he attempt to heal. He built up a great amount of backlog, on this side. It will be quite interesting to see what you earn in his stead through equivalent exchange. What shall you rebuild next? A nation? A religion? A new form of alchemy? Or something rather ironic, considering your background and the reason most of the last few have come here to me? Shall you rebuild a family, man of Ishval?"_

The red-eyed man blinked, taking a step back across the featureless white expanse as the ever-grinning face continued. It never appeared to move, but he could never increase the distance between himself and the glowing, eyeless, smiling thing with his arm. The arm he'd felt Kimbley explode. "What are you?"

"_Slightly easier, though there are still many answers to that, yes? Some call me the Truth. Some call me the World. Some call me God or Death or the Devil. I believe you called me Ishvala, once. I am all those things and more, and less, and not, just as you are many things to many people, aren't you?" _The creature never stopped smiling. "_You have paid your price. And now, your reward." _

Black tendrils swallowed him up once more, and rushed him through another gate, going faster and faster as his life began to flash before his eyes. More and more flew by him, combining in ways he'd never seen, never understood before, but there was at least one rail-thin blond dropped by the Truth's grasping black shadows in his path that Scar never remembered seeing before. He was moving too fast, absorbing too much to get a good, long look at this golden child, but the voice seemed to ring in the Ishvalan's head even as he was drawn inexorably away. "Motherf- Brother! Sensei! _BROTHER_!"

_I didn't know that Alphonse Elric ever swore like that, _Scar thought bemusedly.

*


	2. Deconstruction

**A/N: **Still not mine. Save for the crack and tinhat, naturally. Did anyone say that I was _nice _to the characters? Can't be... Fortunately, it was Jossed today. Hugs all around!

ETA: I finally got the last bit I had prewritten as of 101 edited just after reading Chapter 103, so excuse me while I do an extended "Mei and Scar are awesome!" squee with an extra scoop of Royai and Denny/Maria. Crack is always fun when you can see just how wrong and how right you were.

* * *

"Not the one I was expecting," the father of the Homunculi said as the dark-skinned man fell to the floor in front of them. "But he'll do."

"I don't think that any of us'll do a thing for you, Father," Edward snarled, settling himself into a fighting stance in front of the unmoving suit of armor. "What the hell did you do to Al?"

Izumi clapped her hands together, ready to erect a wall between the pot-bellied black shadow and her former apprentices or go on a full-out attack as needed. Ed could only hope that their alchemic powers hadn't been cut off again. "And give us back Hohenheim," the shorter alchemist demanded in angry afterthought. He may not _like _his own father very much, but what Father had done to his human-born twin was too horrifying for Ed to consider in detail for the moment. _Oh, shit_. Father hadn't absorbed Al, too, had he?

"I don't know what you're talking about." The eye-filled shadow smiled, though his grin tended to drift across his body like a trapped fly in amber. "I transported him here the same as you."

"Actually, you didn't," Scar said as he rose from the floor. "Even with Hohenhiem, I think you'll find that you're still one short." He considered the creature as if wondering exactly what technique would work best to destroy it before glancing at the small State Alchemist behind him with a touch of twisted humor in those red eyes. "I saw Alphonse."

"We'll get him out," Izumi promised confidently. "Later." With that, the dreadlocked housewife moved in for the kill, the Ishvalan flanking her. As much as he wanted to protect the empty husk of metal, half-convinced that the stress of getting pulled through Father's false gate had merely caused his younger brother to faint again, Edward drew his automail wrist-plate back into the armblade and rushed past them towards the original and origin of the homunculi. They were so close… forget his arm; forget his leg; as long as they could restore Alphonse, the elder brother would be content. The next step appeared to be knocking the stuffing out of this thing that had once resembled his father, this thing that now contained his father before it could do anything to Al... Ed could not say he minded this last little detour to his salvation.

He struck, but the blackness clung to him like tar. Izumi tried to pierce it with sharply jutting rises in the floor, but Father's multitude of shadows and eyes flowed back together as quickly as it was pierced. Scar's destructive blow earned him a position no better than Ed's.

Father's maw smiled anew. "Pride is right. Brave humans really are easy to trick."

*

Havoc grabbed up the ringing phone before Fuery could reach it as the shorter man returned from the barricade, wheeling around to try to get a better look at the fuss Denny's arrival was causing at the entrance. "Radio Central, your voice of Amestris. This hour of broadcast sponsored in part by Havoc Sundries," he answered brightly, scratching in brief satisfaction at his beard as he won the latest of their little phone races.

"Havoc, we need backup and medical support. We've got wounded down here." The voice of Roy Mustang came agitatedly through on his headset.

"Sir, a scratch on your hand barely counts as a medical emergency," Hawkeye's voice was nearly as clear, making Jean wonder exactly who was wearing the headset.

"That's not what I'm worried about, Lieutenant, and you know it." Roy sounded as angry as Riza's voice was dry. "You lost a lot of blood just now; we should retreat and return for them when we have more backup."

"I'm fine, sir," Riza insisted through gritted teeth.

"Fuery?" Havoc interrupted them to call over his shoulder. "It looks like the second lieutenant will have to stay with you a while. Mommy and Daddy are fighting again." The "lieutenant" in question whined in curiosity, while Kain just sighed and shook his head, scratching the ears of the dog that lay beneath his chair as he sat back down.

"What happened, colonel? Did you find the Elrics?" Fuery asked, reaching around Jean to patch his own headset into their impromptu conference call.

Breda looked over curiously from the broadcasting booth, and Jean flashed him a thumbs-up, mouthing the word "boss." The redhead raised an eyebrow, and Havoc motioned for him to continue with Mrs. Bradley, mentally promising to fill their third coworker in as soon as they knew what was going on. It ought to make good radio, someday, even if it was only Hawkeye chewing Mustang out for whining.

"Yeah, we found Fullmetal, but then he got pulled away. I've never seen anything like it." There was a thump as Mustang hit a nearby wall in frustration. "Envy's down, at least, and Scar is…" The commanding officer's voice faded out, and Havoc trusted that it wasn't merely from radio interference. "If you see Scar, we can count him an ally."

"Wait - when you say 'Envy's down,' you mean you took down another one, sir?" Havoc spluttered, half-choking on the cigarette that he'd lit in spite of Kain's timid deterrence and warning motions towards Mrs. Bradley. Of all present in the broadcast facility turned rebel headquarters, no one understood the danger implied in such an action as the paralyzed man did.

Roy laughed, though there was more than a trace of bitterness in the sound. "I wish I had. He killed Hughes." Hawkeye cleared her throat significantly at this. "But as certain individuals have pointed out, I got… a bit out of hand when facing him. Ultimately, Envy destroyed himself. We… survived. No physical damage," the colonel reported dutifully. There was a brief, whispered argument that Havoc was sure they'd deny was ever an argument, even if they'd go so far as to admit that it ever happened. Riza sounded more than a little suspicious under the calm, unflappable exterior, and Roy made apologetic, repentant noises along the lines of "I know what I'm doing now, Lieutenant; it won't happen again…"

Havoc shared a glance with Fuery, cupping a hand around the mouthpiece. "Frankly, I'm beginning to agree with Maes," the gingery blond muttered. The communications officer simply smiled and pressed his glasses up his nose in silent agreement. "But what pulled away Edward, then?" Havoc asked. "Did you run into another of them?"

"Not another Homunculus, as such," Mustang replied. "But there's an alchemist on their side down here, one with a lot of homunculus rejects under his control." There was a significant pause in which Hawkeye was suspiciously quiet. "One of them nearly decapitated the lieutenant."

"There was no danger of that, sir," Hawkeye insisted, but in a manner that suggested that she hadn't been as entirely safe as she was implying. "The point, sir, is that if we want to get Edward back, we need to keep moving at a faster rate. Backup would help once we arrive, but we need to keep going while the trail is still fresh. Havoc, we'll contact you again once we know more." With that, the headset clicked off, leaving Jean with a dead line.

"It would be easier, if we could think that they simply wanted to pull each other somewhere private instead of deeper into trouble, wouldn't it?" Kain sighed, sinking back into his chair.

Jean set down the receiver and rolled towards the ammo dump. "Well, we don't have to worry us disturbing them, at least." He hefted a case of .38s, contemplating how much Hawkeye would likely have gone through and how many they might be able to spare here. "So, who was Ross's friend?"

Fuery chuckled softly. "Sometimes I think he's haunting us, but it's probably just your beard." The smaller man pulled over a case of .45s to help Havoc sort. "Brosh," he answered, still keeping his voice down. "Lieutenant Ross is attempting to explain, but she's also attempting to keep him from squeezing her into oblivion. Must have something to do with having Major Armstrong as their CO," he joked.

"The man is fond of hugs," Jean agreed, an evil gleam in his eyes.

"Well, if we run into Armstrong or his sister, we'll designate you as Official Huggee. You don't have to worry about your spine so much anymore." Kain joked.

"Don't get me wrong, if I was just getting hugs from Major-General Olivia Armstrong…" Havoc trailed off, shaking his head as he thought of the formidable blonde. Slowly, his thoughts caught up with the implied message behind the shorter man's words. "You mean you're letting me in on the action, Master Sergeant?" Havoc's smile was slightly vicious as he filled another clip. The ice-cream truck caper aside, it had been too long since he'd gotten in on the action.

"You think the colonel will let us get away with that?" Fuery asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"I _am_ retired. Technically, it's up to me if I want to save his and Fullmetal's sorry asses." He signaled Breda to keep their hosts talking. They could pick team members on the way out, knowing that the broadcasting station was in the capable hands of their chess-master. "Be back in an hour," Jean called. "We're going to pick up more ice cream."

"There's a lockdown," Breda informed them. "We're supposed to stay in the building."

"I really need ice cream after hearing that the Fuhrer's back. How about you, Mrs. B?"

The First Lady of Amestris nodded bemusedly at the paralyzed man's offer, wiping away a relieved tear. "Salem always liked ice cream," she murmured to herself. "His favorite is raspberry…"

"We'll pick up a quart and hold it until we hear from him," Fuery promised her, though ice cream would be the last thing on their minds if the smallest and eldest homunculus really did turn up again.

"Ross, Brosh, save the love-fest for when we can get the cameras. Becky, Mort, Craig, get your groups, you're with me and Kain. We've got two State Alchemists and an annoyed sniper to rescue," Jean barked, a veritable weapons cache hidden in every spare inch his wheelchair could stand. As embarrassing as it might be, he was glad that Fuery was helping to push. The short, dark-eyed man had a box or two slung in the bag he was carrying himself, and that was heavy enough.

Hopefully, Hawkeye and Mustang weren't alone down there. Havoc would hate for one of Central's dogs or Armstrong's bears to break them apart before he could even catch them together, and homunculus rejects would at least keep them otherwise occupied.

*


End file.
